10 Best Airlines You’ve Never Flown

(Photo: CityJet)

A nationally recognized reporter, writer, and consumer advocate, Ed Perkins focuses on how travelers can find the best deals and avoid scams.

He is the author of “Online Travel” (2000) and “Business Travel: When It’s Your Money” (2004), the first step-by-step guide specifically written for small business and self-employed professional travelers. He was also the co-author of the annual “Best Travel Deals” series from Consumers Union.

Perkins’ advice for business travelers is featured on MyBusinessTravel.com, a website devoted to helping small business and self-employed professional travelers find the best value for their travel dollars.

Perkins was founding editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter, one of the country’s most influential travel publications, from which he retired in 1998. He has also written for Business Traveller magazine (London).

Perkins’ travel expertise has led to frequent television appearances, including ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “This Week with David Brinkley,” “The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather,” CNN, and numerous local TV and radio stations.

Before editing Consumer Reports Travel Letter, Perkins spent 25 years in travel research and consulting with assignments ranging from national tourism development strategies to the design of computer-based tourism models.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Perkins lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife.

There aren’t many airlines nobody has flown—those don’t last very long. But quite a few lines—even big ones—are not well-known outside North America; some are known only in a small market. And some offer some interesting advantages and features. Here are our picks.

What's Special: Bigger than you think: Alaska has outgrown its regional name and now resembles the late, lamented Western Airlines. It is the "smallest big line," operating hub-and-spoke schedules, two classes, and a full-featured frequent-flyer program. It generally earns good marks in traveler surveys for both performance and cabin service.

What's Special: Bigger than you think: Alaska has outgrown its regional name and now resembles the late, lamented Western Airlines. It is the "smallest big line," operating hub-and-spoke schedules, two classes, and a full-featured frequent-flyer program. It generally earns good marks in traveler surveys for both performance and cabin service.

Porter Airlines

Market Area: Large Canadian cities from Thunder Bay to St John's, plus six important business and vacation destinations in the eastern U.S.

Alliances and Partners: None.

What's Special: Almost all Porter Airlines flights operate to, from, and through Toronto's ultrafriendly, close-in lakefront airport on Toronto Island, just two miles from downtown. Also, its all-coach seating (34-inch pitch) and cabin service have earned it excellent marks in international traveler surveys, and it joins JetBlue Airways as the only North American lines with four-star Skytrax ratings.

Downside: Porter operates entirely with turboprops—which many travelers dislike—and it can't provide preclearance for travelers headed for the U.S., at least not yet.

Market Area: Flies out-and-back from base cities to dozens of smaller cities and outlying big-city airports throughout the U.S., including border airports catering to Canadians.

Alliances and Partners: None.

What's Special:Allegiant provides the only low-fare, nonstop flights in mainline airplanes from small communities to 10 of the nation's most important visitor destinations. Although other start-up airlines have copied its business model, none have succeeded. Allegiant plans to offer similar service from small Western communities to Hawaii starting later this year or early next.

Downside: Most routes operate only two or three times a week, often at inconvenient hours; Allegiant charges fees for almost everything beyond a seat, and the big online travel agencys and aggregator airfare search engines do not display its fares and schedules.

(Photo: Turkish Airlines)

Turkish Airlines

Home Base and Hubs: Istanbul Ataturk Airport.

Market Area: Flies nonstop from Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and Washington, D.C., to Istanbul, with connections to cities throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

Alliances and Partners:Star Alliance, plus a few small regional lines.

What's Special:Turkish Airlines earned the "Europe's best airline" moniker with Skytrax, and the ratings are generally high for all classes of service. It offers what is reported as a good business class, an above-average economy class, and an excellent new premium economy (but so far on only a few planes).

Downside: From North America, Turkish Airlines serves destinations that are less popular than those to the west of Istanbul.

(Photo: Airbus SAS 2007)

LAN Airlines

Home Base and Hubs: Home base, Aeropuerto de Santiago; secondary hubs at Bogota, Buenos Aires, Guayaquil, and Lima.

Market Area: Flies from Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and San Francisco to much of South America and from South America to Europe and across the South Pacific.

What's Special: One of the two largest South American lines, it operates as a group of five LAN companies based in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru and provides good coverage of western South America. And (in some planes) it offers a better economy class than the other giant South American line, TAM.

What's Special: Virgin Australia recently combined formerly separate domestic and transpacific operations and now is eclipsing the fading star of Qantas in that part of the world. Its international economy product is fairly good, and it offers good premium-economy and business-class service. And, as with the rest of the worldwide Virgin group, nobody can beat Sir Richard Branson's particular brand of airline hype.

Downside: Limited U.S. gateways.

(Photo: CityJet)

CityJet

Home Base and Hubs: London City Airport.

Market Area: Flies from London City Airport to nearby destinations in the U.K. and Europe (as far as Dundee and Florence).

Alliances and Partners:CityJet is a subsidiary of Air France-KLM, thus a member of the SkyTeam alliance and the Air France-KLM Flying Blue frequent-flyer program.

What's Special: The watchword at CityJet is "quick." Quick airport access, quick check-in and security, quick on-and-off with small planes, and quick baggage delivery. CityJet operates the largest number of flights from close-in, user-friendly London City Airport. That field, in London's developing Docklands area, provides a welcome alternative to the hassles and crowding at Heathrow and the taxi-unfriendly extreme distances of Gatwick and Stansted. London's Docklands Light Railway operates directly to the terminal. In effect, it's London's counterpart to Toronto's lakefront airport.

Downside: One-class economy seating in Avro and Fokker planes is cramped. Pricing is keyed more to business travelers than to tourists. Its "CityPlus" isn't a true premium economy; it's mainly a more flexible fare with seating in front rows.

What's Special:Icelandair offers no-charge stopovers in Iceland on North America/Europe through tickets, plus optional hotel and sightseeing packages. Icelandair (then Loftleidir) originally became important in the pre-deregulation era when it flew from the U.S. to Luxembourg at fares that undercut the regulated big-line fares. The line—with its stopover—became known as the "backpackers' airline" because its low fares attracted so many wandering young people. Since then, its key appeal is the ability of passengers on any ticket to visit one of the world's unique and fascinating destinations for no extra airfare.

Downside: Iceland is an expensive destination; Icelandair's product is unexceptional.

EVA Airways

Market Area: Flies from Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver to Taipei with connections to multiple destinations in Asia and Oceania.

Alliances and Partners: In the process of joining Star Alliance.

What's Special:EVA Airways pioneered the concept of premium economy, and its version is still one of the best and the one with the least markup over regular economy. EVA's regular economy is also among the best across the Pacific, and business class is competitive. For connecting travelers, EVA's affiliate, Evergreen Hotels, at Taipei operates one of the world's few full-service, inside-security airport hotels.

What's Special: Over the years, big Asian and Middle Eastern airlines—Asiana, Cathay Pacific, Qatar, and Singapore Airlines, in varying order—dominate top ratings in worldwide traveler surveys. Although those surveys are heavily biased toward business class, these lines also score well for economy. We chose Asiana because it has the best economy product (per Skytrax) of the bunch and flies to more North American cities than the others. But you won't go wrong with any of them; all get especially high marks for cabin service.

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